


Get Fighted

by Companionable



Series: Have It Out [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Except for the kiss, M/M, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 11:09:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3726514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Companionable/pseuds/Companionable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Noya fumes after his encounter with Asahi after their loss to Dateko. He punches some things, yells some others, then resolves to be The Best. That's all there is to it.</p><p>(follows directly after <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/2103024">Sounding Down The Mountain Range</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Fighted

**Author's Note:**

> this follows almost exactly along with episodes 8 and 9 of the anime, so if it jumps around a bit its because i thought maybe describing the episodes might be confusing and unnecessary.

He’d been left standing alone in that locker room for far too long, his heart still in his hands from where he’d handed it to Asahi on a damn silver platter, only to be turned down without even a word or a backward glance. He felt like every girl who’s ever confessed to an upperclassman, someone far out of their league, and been rejected; in more ways than one. Azumane Asahi wasn’t interested in staying for him. Nishinoya probably could have handled that.

As long as “handling it” meant breaking down in the locker room alone, hurling his fists into the sheets of metal surrounding him while screaming his anguish and frustration at an obnoxiously high volume. The rest of the volleyball team had the decency to pretend everything was alright when he returned to clean up the court. Only a brief, pained look from Sugawara was enough to know that he’d been heard, but he refused to commiserate, refused to bring the team down into the depths of his anger. He’d brushed it off with a, “Don’t worry about it, Suga-san! I’m sure Asahi-san will show up for practice tomorrow, so don’t look so down!” that he hardly even believed himself. 

No one was more disappointed than him to see the next day’s practice short one crucial member.

He hadn’t been looking for Asahi the following day at school. Or at least, not consciously. He’d been letting his feet take him wherever they wanted, and they led him straight past the third year classrooms. He hadn’t even registered Asahi standing in front of him until the upperclassman jumped suspiciously.

And then Noya was mad. Because how dare Asahi act guilty! How dare he act like he was about to be caught in the act of something terrible. “Why didn’t you show up at club yesterday?” Noya said instead, because if Asahi wanted to look accused, Noya would happily accuse him of his greatest crime. “Soon after New Years, it’ll be the Inter-High.” 

“It’s no fun...” Asahi says, looking off to his right deliberately, not making eye contact. Exactly like in the locker room after the match. Noya fumes. “Hitting spikes that don’t score. What about you? You save the ball, but if no one scores, it’s all in vain. ” 

He probably says something else, but Noya’s already stopped listening. Never really started when Asahi started making excuses. “Who cares about the other guys!?” he spits. He can feel the eyes of other students, realizes he’s making a scene, but Asahi is turning and walking away from him, and he’s livid. The dean even dares to try and stop him from bringing Asahi to his senses, but Noya won’t allow it. Asahi is still fucking walking away, still hanging his head like a kicked dog, swaying like anything that ever grounded him has suddenly been pulled out from under him. Like he didn’t just pull that grounding out from under himself in some vain attempt at self-flagellation. It’s so... _uncool_. “Don’t you want to spike and score again?!” he calls at that retreating back, like a receding wall, but it’s no use. Asahi is lost to him, lost to the volleyball team. And he’s incurred a suspension.

\-----

It takes approximately three days into his suspension for Ryuunosuke to show up at his door with claims of studying that Noya’s mother hardly buys, but when he stomps down the stairs and lights up at seeing his friend, his mother can’t exactly refuse.

"Damn. A month's suspension from club activities! You really pissed the dean off."

Noya shrugs. "He was in my way."

They share an understanding grin, before Ryuu takes a look at his desk. "What was your penalty?"

The smaller second-year drags a hand through his dyed bangs with a sigh. "Formal written apology, three weeks of cleaning duty to relieve the class reps, and I have to memorize and properly write 10 idioms that effectively demonstrate my reflection and remorse,'" he says with a hand on his head to press his hair into an imitation of a toupee, putting on a perfect impression of the dean's voice.

That gets a real, uninhibited laugh out of Ryuu, and Noya feels himself relax. "Ah, shit, Noya-san. That's fuckin' rough."

Nishinoya shrugs and rubs the back of his neck. "Eh, no worries. Suga-san said he'd help me write the letter, and Ennoshita-kun told me he'd study the idioms with me."

"And what about Asahi?"

The change in Ryuu's tone is just as quick as Nishinoya's change in temper. "I don't care about that coward!" he shouts, glaring at Ryuunosuke's pitying expression.

And Noya knows exactly what the next thing out of his mouth will be. "Is this about--"

" _No!_ " he says, too quickly, feeling himself flush, but not backing down. "In no way is it about my feelings for him. It's about the ace turning his back on the team when we need him most!"

Ryuu, rather uncharacteristically, bites his lip and looks indecisive. It's nice to have him over after being suspended, but Noya's starting to think that his friend might be a little more perceptive than he's been giving him credit for. "What happened after the match that day, Noya-san?"

"Nothing happened!" Noya tells him, pleading with Ryuu to give it up, to let him live down this embarrassment and anger in peace. "I went in to find him to help out, I asked him in as many ways as I knew how to stay on the team when he said he was leaving, and he still left..." Telling it like it is feels like finalizing it, it feels like acceptance, and Noya wants to scream from how he _doesn't_ want to accept this. "I might've... kissed him. In a fit of passion..."

Now Ryuunosuke is leaning across the table to stare at him incredulously. "You just--" he tries, then shakes his head and says again, "just up and kissed the guy?" When Nishinoya only blushes and remains decidedly silent, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, Ryuu looks away with a similar flush on his cheeks. “How did that... how did that go for you?”

Noya levels him with a particularly dry stare, unimpressed with his friend’s deductive reasoning. “Obviously, Ryuu, it worked out spectacularly for me.” He gestures emphatically to the entirety of his bedroom and the punishment laid out on the table before them for effect.

Ryuu grasps at the air for a moment before finally admitting, “Well, what do you do now? We don’t have a libero on the team anywhere near as incredible as you, and I can’t--I won’t be at ace playing level for a while, maybe ever.”

Leaning back on his hands, Noya shrugs. “I’ll play with the neighbourhood ladies’ team. Clearly,” he says with determination, raising a fist and balling it tight, “I have things I need to work on. I want to get better. Get stronger. I want to be worthy of the name ‘The Guardian God of Karasuno.’ I’ll be the best damn libero in the prefecture, in the whole fucking country, and that when I’ll drag Asahi-san back, so he can learn to trust me, trust the team, and not be made out of blown glass all the damn time!”

“And kiss him again?” Ryuunosuke asks with a knowing tease in his voice, and Noya leaps across the table to strangle him so he doesn’t have to say “Well, that’s obvious.” Because that’s embarrassing.

\-----

A month with the ladies’ team is good for him. They’re happy to help him work on his block-follows, and they praise his work as a libero enough that his ego is back to nearly full size in three weeks. They learned quickly not to ask why he would throw himself with so much force to the ground to save balls that seemed so impossible. And when they did at the end of the month, and he couldn’t keep his eyes completely dry, they were supportive, which he appreciated. “You’ve got to support a man like that,” one of them said, resting his head on her shoulder. “You’ve got to be a pillar for him until he’s strong enough to support you back. Because he will be; it just takes some time.” It wasn’t as though he hadn’t already known that, but hearing it from someone else helped firm his resolve. He’d become a libero so good at his job that Asahi would never need to look guiltily over his shoulder ever again. He’d never hear the sound of the ball hitting the court behind him after a spike.

He’d be the best goddamn libero Japan had ever seen.

He returns to club activities in high spirits, eager to show off his skills and prove himself to be an even better libero than when he left. And honestly, when the tall-and-scowly first-year serves him a perfect, _perfect_ jump serve, he can’t help but dash in to receive it. Ryuu’s surprised to see him back only because he forgot what day he returned on, but Daichi and Sugawara are genuinely happy to see him back. The first-years are duly impressed with him, Kiyoko is just as curt with him as ever, and he feels such a true and unbridled joy to be back on the court, that he asks without thinking, “Where’s Asahi-san? Did he come back?”

The looks of shock on Daichi and Sugawara’s faces are answer enough. The whirlwind of anger he felt before comes back, and he realizes that he had been giving Asahi’s glass heart far too much credit. “That wimp!” he shouts, wishing a wall were closer to him so he could slam a fist into it.

Ryuu calling him out on his rudeness, even dropping the honorific to admonish him about it, is just too rich. “A wimp is a wimp!” he spits, not caring that he’s setting a bad example for the underclassman. “If Asahi-san isn’t coming back, neither am I.”

All of his hard work is wasted if Asahi continues to be a coward and run from the court. There’s no point, no point in being the best libero in the world if he’s not there to ease the ace’s fears. What’s the point in keeping the ball connected if Asahi isn’t there to power through all the blockers in the world to score? Why play volleyball when he’s not playing it with his ace?

The team makes a valiant effort at getting him back, and damn if the jittery first year isn’t frustratingly convincing with his “senpai” and his “teach me to receive” and his “I respect you so much because you’re my upperclassman and are clearly better and cooler than me in every aspect”...

Well, alright, maybe he inferred a bit too hard on that last one...

But he’s convinced. Playing without Asahi isn’t as fun, isn’t as rewarding, and as much as he cares about the team, he cares about getting Asahi back more. Asahi returning to the team... That’s Nishinoya’s goal.

When the new coach asks him to cover for the neighbourhood association team’s libero, he does it begrudgingly, thinking of the ways he could improve in receiving for a more experienced team. If only he could get stronger, get better, be the very best libero there ever was, maybe--maybe then Asahi would...

“Ah!! It’s Asahi-san!” Hinata calls, and Noya stops dead in his tracks.

Asahi slinks in through the gym doors, and stands upright with a look of apprehension. He’s tall as ever, his hair still in that bun so the dean won’t call him out on it not being within uniform regulations, and he still looks like a field mouse caught in the gaze of a hawk under the scrutinizing looks of others. His face looks rough, he hasn’t shaved lately, but Noya knows he’s soft under all of it, literally and figuratively.

He thanks any and all gods listening that the beat his heart skips doesn’t show on his face.

Coach Ukai sends Asahi to play with the association team as well, and Nishinoya bites back on both his anger and his excitement. This is his chance to prove Asahi wrong. Now, he can show Asahi exactly how fearless he can be with his brand new libero. He’ll do it; no matter how close the ball gets to the court floor, he’ll get his hands under it, he’ll raise the ball up, and he... he will be the one to let Asahi score. He’ll become the very cornerstone of trust for Asahi, so his spikes will never feel useless again.

“That’s what I want.” Noya whirls to face Asahi when he speaks, his face set in obvious determination. “No matter how many times I fail, I still want to spike.”

It’s all he needed to hear. The weight of a month of worry, a day of let downs and disappointments, a set of anticipation, are all immediately lifted from him. Asahi still wants to play. He still wants to score. He... he still wants Noya. “Then I’m fine,” he says, a grin playing around his lips easily, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “If that’s what you want, I’m fine.”

He drives it home by receiving the ball after Kageyama, Tsukishima and Ryuu block Asahi’s spike. A month of hard training pays off in just a few seconds when his hand slides under that ball, lifting it back into the air, back into play. He’s back in position in moments. “Even if the ball bounces off the wall, I’ll keep it in play.” It’s a promise, a surety, a benediction from across the court. “So, call for a toss again,” he begs, his eyes watering purely from the force behind the words, “ace!”

Sugawara receives the ball, looking for all the world like he’s not sure Asahi can spike it anymore. But just as he’s about to set for one of the association geezers, Asahi calls to him, calls for the spike, and just like the ace they knew before the match against Dateko, he slams it into the floor with all the force of an off-shore hurricane. The sound of the ball hitting the court echoes through the gym until it’s the only thing they can hear, the only thing Nishinoya hears. It sounds like victory. It sounds like a return to older, easier times.

It sounds like home.


End file.
